


Morning Glory

by PallasPerilous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Universe, Castiel (Supernatural) is Not a Morning Person, Conversations in the Impala (Supernatural), Ficlet, Insomnia, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Temporarily Human Castiel (Supernatural), Trope Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 09:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18163709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PallasPerilous/pseuds/PallasPerilous
Summary: Dean couldn’t really explain why he’d assumed Cas would suck at mornings. Maybe the 24/7 bedhead and the “it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere” shadow; maybe just the way he veers into grouchy asshole territory whenever the world takes a dump on his shoes, which is kind of the definition of mornings.Whatever: Cas just seems like the kind of guy who’d need forty minutes of silence and three cups of coffee before he’d count as human. Hey, well, joke’s on Dean, ‘cuz the guy definitely (currently) counts as human, and he’s awake at five fucking thirty in the morning, every morning, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed and talking a mile a minute. A mile a second. He’s breaking the sound barrier and exerting serious G-forces._____A quiet little clapback to the fandom trope that Human Castiel Is Not A Morning Person.





	Morning Glory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CR Noble (erudite12)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erudite12/gifts).



Dean couldn’t really explain _why_ he’d assumed Cas would suck at mornings. Maybe the 24/7 bedhead and the “it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere” shadow; maybe the fact he never really seemed convinced that “taking a shower” and “eating breakfast” weren’t just some elaborate long con they’ve been pulling on him for the last half a goddamn decade.

Maybe just the way he veers into grouchy asshole territory whenever the world takes a dump on his shoes, which is kind of the definition of mornings. Whatever: Cas just seems like the kind of guy who’d need forty minutes of silence and three cups of coffee before he’d count as human.

Hey, well, joke’s on Dean, ‘cuz the guy definitely (currently) counts as human, and he’s awake at five fucking thirty in the morning, every morning, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed and talking a mile a minute. A mile a second. He’s breaking the sound barrier and exerting serious G-forces. Dean would tear his own face off if he thought it’d make the dude shut up until the Pop-Tarts came up. Instead he just kinda lets the Cas Chatter wash over him, like really phlegmy birdsong, or the world’s weirdest morning chit chat show. 

Cas has at least taught himself to make coffee –– apparently all on his own, since Sam isn’t taking credit for it, and Sam loves taking credit for shit. It’s not the worst coffee, either. I mean, it’s _bad coffee_ , nobody here is drinking Good Coffee, it’s a weapon, not an experience –– but it’s not watery or full of grounds or made with orange juice or some other weird dumbass goof.

Sam’s take is that maybe Jimmy Novak was a Morning Person and now that Cas isn’t using the guy’s body as a kind of celestial thermos, some of the dude’s original behaviors or genetics or whatever are sort of…coming back online, reasserting themselves. “Like the burger thing,” Sam says, shrugging.

“Well, that’s ten kinds of fucked up,” Dean answers, but then the goddamn ghoul turns out to be a whole Leave It To Beaver nuclear ghoul family and the conversation gets extremely tabled.

There’s a morning awhile after where Dean wakes up still drunk and can’t handle the thought of two more hours riding the motel bed over the rolling seas of FuckUpistan, so he gets up and showers off the townie bar fug as best he can without waking Sam –  _only_ Sam, because it’s dawn and so Cas is already up and probably singing Disney princess songs to the seagulls haunting the trashcans in the parking lot.

Dean reaches to scoop his keys and does a bleary double take when they’re not on the nightstand. He takes a moment to freak out at the possibility of Cas doing his clutch-smiting routine on the Impala, but something twigs and he peels open the door and yep, the car’s still in the lot, outlined in scribbly motel neon and highway dawn pink. There’s a faint warble of bass rolling off it in time to…Dean’s gonna say _Hole in the Sky?_ So he kinda queases his way over the lumpy asphalt and knuckles on the driver side window and Cas jumps a fucking foot, or he would if he weren’t wearing the _goddamn lap belt_ in a perfectly stationary car.

Dean thumbs at the other side and Cas shakes himself off enough to lean over and pop it for him. Dean slides in and the car smells like three hour-old motel check-in desk coffee – his stomach immediately tries to file a lawsuit but the sanctity of the leather interior wins over his bodily need to evacuate poisons every time. Cas’s hands are back on the steering wheel, gripping it at 10 and 2 like a good boy but with his knuckles the color of popcorn, an abused-looking paper cup empty on the seat beside him, and Sabbath is still living on the profits of pride at top volume. Dean rolls it down to conversational levels so he doesn’t have to scream when he says “What’s the story, morning glory?”

Reminder: Dean is _definitely still drunk_.

Thankfully Cas doesn’t really know from Oasis _or_ Sunday morning BJs so Dean just gets two blue eyeballs full of blank terror.

Dean tries again, picks the cup up off the seat. There’s a rind of dried coffee juice inside. “What’s up? Sunrise three minutes off? Songbirds outta order? Thought you’d be out here braiding your hair and frolicking in the dew or some shit.”

Cas blinks, which is something he’s been doing a lot more lately and frankly is a weird look for him. “No,” he says, voice cracking. “I haven’t done any of those things this morning.” He frowns, which is a little better. “Or any morning, to my knowledge.”

“So, what then? Bad dreams?”

Cas scrunches his face up in his left hand, pulls it back through his already frankly insane hair, sighs out a gust of Eau de Flopsweat. “No. I didn’t dream at all.”

“Congrats.”

Cas goggles back at him. “As much as I dislike dreaming as a…subject, instead of an observer. I find its absence.” He hesitates. “Much worse.”

Dean rubs his eyes because this has that angst metaphysical angel pong to it and that’s really more of a Sam Specialty. “How’s it worse? I _drink_ for those nights, man. It’s a few hours off of. You know.” He gestures at The Universe, Generally. “All this shit.”

Cas scoffs and leans back in the seat, although he doesn’t release the wheel from the iron grip. “Dean, in almost four billion years of existence –”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Dean mutters, because this is the traditional overture to an absolute diarrhea of angelsplaining.

Cas ignores him, or maybe Sabbath covers his tracks – “I have _never_ been rendered… _unconscious._ ”

Dean gives him a look, because bullshit. “C’mon. I’ve seen you knocked out before. Down for the count.”

Cas shakes his head. “I’ve been forced to cede control over my vessel. I’ve withdrawn into it to preserve myelf. I’ve experienced a fugue state, or been made to retroactively forget details of my experience. But I have never.” He breathes in through his nose, the edges of his nostrils going white to match his knuckles. “I’ve never been _insensate_ and _unaware_ at the same time.”

Some asshat pulling his rig out of the diner across the way opens up his jake brake and Cas flinches at the crack.

“Huh,” is about what Dean’s got to serve up. “You worried somebody’s gonna snuff you while you’re down? We can take shifts when we’re on the road, if that’s what’s freakin’ you out.”

Another shake of the head. “Anyone truly invested in eliminating me specifically in this… _state_ would be too powerful or competent to be defended against through normal means. Angels can be killed, Dean. My experience of a mortal death would be – ” he cuts himself off. “Less worrisome than the alternative, in many ways _._ ”

“Cool, so, being murdered in your sleep, not a concern.”

“I’m more concerned,” Cas huffs, “that I am unable to defend _you._ ” His forehead droops down towards the steering wheel, like a houseplant somebody forgot to water before a Disneyland vacation.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Dean says.

“I am not,” Cas answers, “fucking kidding you.”

Dean snorts. “I made it thirty years without your feathery ass watching over me. Now you’ve just got a normal-ass… _ass_ , you think I’m suddenly shaking in my boots? C’mon, man.”

Cas shrugs, which looks even weirder on him than the blinking.

Dean twiddles the paper cup, rolls it between his palms. “You haven’t been, like, watching me and Sam _sleep_ , have you? Because you know I can't stand that _Twilight_ shit.”

“No,” Cas says, in a tone of infinite offense, like Dean has suggested he sleeps in girls underwear or something. “But, Dean. The experience of _sleep. Dreamless_ sleep. It’s not. It’s not dissimilar to what we are told to expect, as angels, after death.”

(The music slides over into _Symptom of the Universe_ and Dean desperately wishes he’d left something peppier in the deck when they pulled in last night.)

“Only I’m given to understand that we are at least…in _company_ with each other. Though silent and unaware. We _share_ the same sleep. In a way it’s a return to our origin as an undifferentiated host, before we were distinguished from each other. But in _human_ sleep.” He looks over at Dean, face slack. “You’re _alone_. Prisoner in a corporeal cell. Did you know,” he goes on, practically stepping on himself, warming up the verbal jet engines, “that some individuals experience a phenomenon where, upon waking, they suffer a period of total bodily paralysis?”

Dean frowns. “Yeah. Sounds shitty.”

Cas nods. “Jimmy experienced it semi-regularly.” Then he looks out and up, squints at the motel sign. Maybe he needs glasses.

“So you inherited it, huh?” Dean says, softly. Cas doesn’t respond. “So, sleeping’s shit. And waking _up’s_ shit. Ain't you the lucky one.”

Cas’s squint turns into a wince. “In the Bunker, I’ll get up and make coffee.”

Dean waggles the mutilated cup. “Yeah. Thinking of buying stock in Folger’s.”

“I’ll visit the archives, or. Write letters.” (Who the hell is he writing _letters_ to, Dean idly wonders? _Dear_ _Angel_ _Abby_?) “Go up to the roof to,” he glances at Dean, anticipating the eyeroll, “ _watch the dawn._ On the road, it’s…more difficult to keep myself occupied. Keep my mind off of the fact that I can no longer hear the rest of the host. That I am,” he stretches his palms out over the wheel, tenses his clenched fingers, “quite nearly _useless,_ ”

“Cas,” Dean says, even more softly.

“And that, in a mere matter of _hours_ ,” Castiel closes his eyes, or the eyes he is currently doing business under. “The cycle will _repeat_.”

“Cas,” Dean says. And he reaches out what he suspects is the memory of Mom’s hand and sets his palm on the back of the guy’s neck, against the damp skin and unwashed hair. The muscles there relax but the blue eyes stay closed and Dean drops the cup on the floor and sets the other hand that’s just his on the side of Cas’s face, and slowly sweeps the side of his thumb over the sandpaper jaw and waxy cheekbone.

And he pulls Cas’s head towards him, then down against his own shoulder and chest. Cas’s hands peel off the steering wheel and drift to lie, palms open, up, across their undistinguished assortment of kneecaps and thighs.

After awhile, a few more tracks in the tape, Cas’s breathing goes smoothe and deep.

Dean feels eyelashes flicker against his collarbone – guy’s already dreaming.

 

Dean watches the dawn, reflected on motel windows. 


End file.
